Charging e-scooters uses
more fuel than riding saves

I haven’t been unaware, but the article “Alameda to come up with rules for e-scooters” reinforced the fact that people have been misled into “consider[ing them] … a boon to the environment.”

E-scooter companies don’t publicize all of their business model, but would you be surprised to know that, like many business models of the capitalist age, they externalize costs to the detriment of other humans and to the detriment of, wait for it, the environment?

I wanted to know how they’re kept charged. Answer: Giggers. With cars.

I’ll leave it to readers to discern how unfair the externalization of labor and hardware costs are, but understand that people in cars are driving around, moving these scooters between drop-off locations, their homes and pickup locations. Other people’s ability to pick up an electric scooter depends on probably way more fuel than they saved by riding it.

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